Google Web Stories Plugin for WordPress to Drive Traffic

Google Web Stories is a new plugin and a unique opportunity for WordPress users to quickly, easily, and beautifully create stories for smartphones or tablets.

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Google’s Web Story is created from a series of vertical images that mobile users can switch with just one click. It is also possible to show videos for up to 15 seconds. You can add text to the video so that users can get information from the video content if it is not possible to watch the video with sound. WordPress stories are ideal for conveying information in small chunks of 1 or 2 sentences because many people simply won’t read long text. Therefore, you can focus on the main thing and quickly interest a potential target audience using a concise message.

Key features:

Choosing the right font color for comfortable reading.
Adding visual elements for readability even on random background images such as custom content.
Use of short audio files on every page.

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What is Google Web Stories for?

Today, the most convenient way to get information for mobile users is through stories. They are beautiful, original, iconic, and they do not take much time.
Using this feature can generate additional traffic because stories are ranked on Google Pictures.
It is a guaranteed high response rate because a simple text without pictures is of little interest to anyone.
It has the ability to share and upload to the web without being limited to a closed ecosystem or platform.

What are the benefits of Google Web Stories?

Web Stories quickly captured the hearts of users and the reason is very simple. They are unlike any other type of content. The characteristics that make them unique are as follows.

Stories are created to engage viewers who use mobile devices. As statistics show, these types of viewers make up the majority of visits.
Web Stories are backed by Google and will appear in Google search results, images, and recommendations.
The stories support different lines of business and therefore different content. This is very convenient since you can use video and animation.
High download speed.
It can be published anywhere on the website.
It is created quickly and easily. In the test version, the plugin includes ready-made templates. There are about 10 of them and each of them has several pages with many design options. These templates are a big advantage because they will help you get the job done quickly.

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Stories are not only easy to create and publish, they can also be ranked for different types of search results. The main advantage is that they can be used for advertising. Many were looking forward to this from Google.

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Installing the Google Web Stories Plugin

1. Download the free beta plugin and activate it

The beta plugin is publicly available, so it has most of the core functionality. The full version will be released a little later. At the moment, this is a good opportunity to try and understand how everything works. The full version will have better stability and performance. Bugs that occur when using the beta version will also be fixed. Various improvements are planned such as support for animation and page nesting.

Since this is a beta version, you will need to download the file and install it manually by following these steps:

Go to the Stories Github page, and download this version of the plugin (the release will take place in WordPress itself).
In the “Plugins” section add a new plugin.
Download the plugin.
Select the unpacked file on your computer.
Click Install Now.
If everything is done correctly, the message “Plugin installed successfully” will appear.
Activate.

2. Get to work

Once installed and activated, a new Stories tab will appear on the WordPress dashboard.

Click on the “Stories” tab.
Select “Create new”.

A toolbar will appear on the screen, which consists of 3 columns:

The column on the left includes a list of all media files for the site. These files are extracted from the WordPress media library.
The column in the middle is a preview. It is basically an opportunity to get acquainted with the slide on which the work is in progress.
The last column is the settings for individual content elements and the entire document.

The principle of work is very similar to working with Photoshop. If you worked with the program, no difficulties will arise. For those who have not come across such programs, it is important to know that each added element is a layer. For example, description, text title, shape, and background are all different layers of elements.

What Is Important to Know When Creating a Story:

Google pointed out that stories shouldn’t be very short or very long. Ideally, they should be 4-30 slides.
When creating a Story, use auto-formatting. This feature can save your work time.
Stories are shown not only for mobile users but for everyone.

Why Choose Google Web Stories

Google Web Stories plugin can be called a WordPress traffic plugin. Previously, WordPress users could not create and publish web stories directly from the site admin area. The stories were created using the AMP app or third-party programs. Google specially designed such a plugin for WordPress users and made official support for Stories in WordPress.

The Google plugin for WordPress will provide the opportunity to get additional traffic from the search engine, create publications in a couple of minutes, and maintain the quality when displayed on smartphones and tablets. The plugin is especially useful for sites with entertainment topics, resources with news content, photographs, or art.

Web Stories is a new and interesting way to publish content that has a future. The stories have a nice and unobtrusive look. It all resembles a magazine page that integrates perfectly with the WordPress navigation structure. Using this plugin, the visual presentation of information is improved, more leads appear, and SEO is improved.